


when the party's over

by attheborder



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Russian Doll (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 20:42:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18415490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: The Doctor arrives too late to save Nadia from her time loop, but luckily she's not a woman who has ever needed saving.





	when the party's over

He knows the moment he steps out of the TARDIS that he’s too late. 

There is a taste in the air like the last song played at a disco, a distinct flavor of done-ness, shot through with a bittersweet finality. 

The Doctor sniffs discreetly to confirm his initial impression, looking around at the disheveled park environment. It’s the late hours of the night— or the early hours of the morning— but also, really, no time at all, he determines with a glance at his watch. A disturbance is in the last stages of diminishing, giving the time-flow in the temporo-geographic region a molasses-like quality as it comes back up to normal speed. 

“Damn,” he mutters. He's missed it. He is disappointed in himself. It feels like arriving fashionably late to a rock concert because you thought the band was going on at 11PM when really, they went on at 10PM so when you stumble in at 11:15 expecting to catch at least half an hour of some prime 1991 grunge in an Olympia bar, what you get is drunken flannel-wearers talking over the mumbly folk singer closing out the night. Always the worst. 

On the far side of the park under a bridge there is a crowd of people dispersing, some headed in his direction. The Doctor closes the door of the TARDIS behind him and quietly makes his way to a vantage point behind a bench, shaded from the glare of park's lamps by a tree. The revelers have the exultantly hoarse voices of those who have just been having a really, really good time. They seem to glow from the inside, impervious to the cold wind that blows around the park, tossing up fast-food wrappers and receipts into miniature tornadoes. 

From behind the bench the Doctor tries to pick out someone to approach. People are breaking off in pairs and trios, which he is reluctant to disrupt. He doesn’t want to ruin anyone’s night. Or morning. Or whatever. 

He observes a couple make their way towards him, and then pause on the path. Short girl with big hair, tall guy who looks like he’s only learned to walk yesterday. They speak to each other quietly, press themselves into a deep embrace, and then draw apart. A moment’s pause— something wordless is exchanged between them— and then the tall one walks away. 

The woman draws her gray coat tighter around her, as though she’s only just noticed the cold now that the man has gone. From her pants pocket she produces a cigarette, and holds it between her teeth as she pats down her coat, searching—

“Need a light?” 

The Doctor steps from the shadows, proffering up a sleek golden lighter to the woman. She nods; holds his eyes as he lights her cigarette. He folds the lighter back into one of his infinite inner pockets and waits for her to speak first. 

“You were watching me from back there? Creep,” she says, blowing smoke in his face. Her voice is broad, sharp, wise.

The Doctor coughs, waves the smoke away. “I wasn’t,” he says. “Promise. I’m just passing through.” 

The woman nods. “I didn’t see you back in the parade,” she says. 

She takes another drag as the Doctor shakes his head. “I missed it,” he says. “Bad timing. Bad luck. What’s your name?”

“Nadia,” she says. 

“I’m the Doctor,” says the Doctor. 

She rolls her eyes at him. “Really? A doctor,  _ now? _ Where were you when I was vomiting blood and pieces of glass and dying on the floor of a fucking brunch place?”

“You look fine to me,” says the Doctor. “Not dead at all, by my count. Though it is quite dark, so I may be wrong.”

“Jesus,” Nadia laughs, rubbing her eyes with her free hand, “if after all this I’m actually dead I’d kill myself. Hey, you got the time? My phone is dead.”

The Doctor checks his watch, letting the diagnostics of the local time field run in fast-forward. “It’s been 4:27 AM for the last 10 minutes. Time field analysis indicates there’s a strong chance it might skip back to 4:03 before charging ahead right to 4:45. Does that help?” 

Nadia collapses back onto the bench with an exhausted sigh. The Doctor sits down beside her. 

“Dude,” she says. “Who _ are _ you? And please, if this is about to be some ‘you’re a wizard Harry’ shit I will get up and leave.” 

“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor repeats. “Nadia, you’ve had a very long day, haven’t you?” 

She lets out another bark of a laugh. “It’s that obvious, huh?” She finishes her cigarette, tosses the butt to the ground. “I kept dying, and then going back in time. Doing it all again. The same day— my birthday. Over and over, until I got it right.”

“Was it hard?” the Doctor asks. 

Nadia is staring straight ahead, the side of her face lit by the halogen glow from above. “The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” she says. 

“Was it worth it?”

Nadia turns to him now. “Yeah… Yeah, I think so, but man…. I don’t know,” she says. “I really don’t.”

“It’ll be a while before you do,” says the Doctor casually. “I’d take a couple weeks off, if you can. Get some rest. Re-entry from a causal loop into standard time can be hard on the body. Make sure you’re getting plenty of electrolytes, you’re probably very susceptible to stomach bugs right now.”

“What are you, a time travel therapist?” 

The Doctor smiles. “If you want me to be.”

Nadia thinks for a moment. “So…. you can tell me precisely what happened? And why, and how it happened? With nice big words, a logical, ultra-scientifical explanation for everything?”

“Yes.”

“Well, keep it to your damn self.”

The Doctor blinks. That’s a new one. 

“You... don’t want to know?”

“Hell no, are you kidding?” she says, and goes on: “You know, I hate those stupid YouTube videos about  _ 2001 _ or  _ Mullholland Drive _ or whatever that are all, here’s what  _ really  _ happened, here’s what it  _ really  _ means, and it goes on and on for longer than the actual movie. So here I am like, I could care less about ‘really.’ I  _ know _ what happened, because it happened to me. What it means is what I make it mean. No offense to you,” she added, “I’m sure you’re wicked smaht and all, and you’ve got craaazy mindblowing time knowledge, but I just don’t think anything else can fit inside my head right now.”

The Doctor is forced to concede on this point. 

“Alright,” he says. “I won’t do any explaining. None at all.”

“Great,” says Nadia.

“But can I ask one last question? About your… experience. Just one.”

She nods slowly, and the Doctor says: “What did you like about it?”

“Hah. Funny.”

“No, really,” says the Doctor. “C’mon. Tell me. What’d you like?”

“Fine. Fine, I liked… being able to see things differently each time. I liked… I liked the challenge, I guess, of the puzzle of it all. The problem to solve. I liked when I figured out exactly what was happening and got to give a big smart speech to Alan about time and relative dimensions in space—”

“Oh! That’s always,  _ always,  _ the best part,” exclaims the Doctor, and he beams at her with a sudden flush of pride. 

She notices: “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not. Go on.” He averts his eyes.

“What?”

“You weren’t done. What else did you like?” the Doctor prods. 

“Well, you know. Him. Alan.”

“The man you said goodbye to, just now?”

“You  _ were  _ watching, you dirty pervert!” Nadia punches the Doctor’s arm. 

“Ow!”

The Doctor rubs his arm, and Nadia smirks and says, “Yeah.  _ That _ guy. I liked meeting him. Having someone to go through it with— I’m glad it was him.”

“That’s good,” says the Doctor. “That’s really, really good.” 

She’s squinting at him now, through the dim false-darkness of the city night. “And you— you’re out here all alone, huh? Checking on weird time shit by yourself? In Men In Black they always had partners. Where’s your Will Smith?” 

“I’m not a men—  _ man _ in black,” says the Doctor. “Well— I mean— I know I’m  _ wearing  _ black, but I’m not—” He’s flustered. 

“I get it,” Nadia smiles. “But let me flip this Spanish Inquisition around on you, Craigy Ferg, if I may. You didn’t mean to come sit here, getting your ass cold, and debrief with little old me, did you? I bet a hundred you wanted in on the action.”

“You got me,” says the Doctor.

Nadia scoffs, shakes her head. “How do you travel? Time bike?”

“I’ve got a… ship,” says the Doctor.

“And the ship is smart, right?”

“Very.”

“I’ll tell you what I think, and you tell me if I’m wrong. You wanted to have fun solving a crazy conundrum that just so happened to be mine. You tell your ship to head for the thick of it. Instead, it pops you out right here, right now. When the party’s over.”

The Doctor doesn’t bother to nod. She knows she’s right, and she knows that he knows.

She smiles, and he can see how tired she is— nearly as tired as him. An accomplishment in and of itself.  

“Doctor,” she says, “has anyone ever told you that not every problem is yours to solve?”

“They keep trying, Nadia,” the Doctor admits, “but I don’t listen.”

There is silence between them as the sounds of the city continue on. A siren wails from somewhere south of the park. The scrabble of a small animal in the bushes behind them. The ambient roar of cars, trains, a red-eye above. 

Around them, the corners of the park begin to brighten. 

“Sun’s coming up,” Nadia says. “I thought you said it was 4:30.”

The Doctor checks his watch again. “Timestream has readjusted, trending towards normality. 6:45AM and proceeding as usual from here.” 

Nadia stands up, dusting her coat off. “Can I get that light again?”

The Doctor stands up beside her. He lights her new cigarette and then hands her the lighter. She turns it over in her hands. 

“You can have it,” he says. “Authentic thirty-fifth century, Second Battalion of Mars.” 

“Oh, no  _ shit, _ ” Nadia says breathlessly.

“Yes… shit,” the Doctor supplies. 

Nadia pockets the lighter gratefully. “I better get home,” she says. “I’m so fucking tired, dude.”

And here is where the Doctor would usually make some kind of proposition, if not a “come with me now” then an “I’ll be back tomorrow, come with me then” or even the slightly-morally-suspect “come look inside my ship, and if you don’t want to come with me after that, I’ll leave you alone forever”— but it’s strange, it’s as if something is telling him that  _ she  _ should be the one asking  _ him  _ to come with her, some hint that  _ she _ would be the one taking  _ him  _ for a ride. 

He almost wants to ask if she owns a mysterious pocket watch that she’s never opened.

But instead he just says, “I’d best be off as well.”

“You come around here often?” Nadia asks. He knows very well that what she means is,  _ will I ever see you again. _

The Doctor shrugs noncommittally.  

“We should go get haircuts together or something,” Nadia says. “I got a great guy on Rivington. Can really work with curls.” She gestures at the mess of silver atop the Doctor’s head. 

“That sounds lovely,” he says, and means it. 

Nadia looks him up and down. “And if time starts going crazy again,” she says, “I will see you after, and  _ only  _ after, I have figured it all out on my own. I’m serious.” She wags a finger in his face.

“Understood,” says the Doctor. 

Nadia holds out her hand, and the Doctor takes it. They shake, officiously, and then she steps away. “Smell ya later, Doctor,” she says, and he waves to her as she turns on her heel and strides away, cigarette hanging from her fingers, the barest hints of morning sunlight turning her copper hair into a glittering red disco ball.

“Goodbye, Nadia,” says the Doctor, too quiet for her to hear, lowering his hand. 

She's gone, and the morning grows ever lighter, and the Doctor supposes that now that he's alone again, he can go back to the TARDIS and grab some equipment. He can set up monitoring stations to take some energy samples, making sure there's no lingering alien presence, or hidden timesinks, or any kind of danger posed to the inhabitants of the neighborhood… 

But he thinks about Nadia’s confidence, and intelligence, and most of all her kindness, which she is still growing into, and he decides to simply leave it be. 

This place is under her protection, even if she doesn't quite know it yet. And the Doctor doesn't know what will happen next, which is always exciting, but he looks forward to watching Nadia take care of it, all by herself. No Doctor required. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Halfway through Russian Doll I started thinking about how Nadia would make a great companion, but by the end of the show I couldn't stop thinking about how Nadia would make a great Doctor!


End file.
